Moonie mobile black spot tower disrupted by 'illegal booster'

A THREE year wait for a mobile black spot tower in Moonie has finally come to an end but so far locals have been experiencing the opposite of the increased coverage they expected.

The new tower was erected in the township a few weeks ago, but it is yet to be fully functional.

It is understood an ‘illegal booster’ is taking service away from the tower and as a result those within a 15km radius have been asked to turn off their personal 3G boosters to help diagnose the problem.

Two weeks later, and residents are still without mobile service while many have also lost landline access following recent wet weather.

Lynelle Urquhart lives on a 3600 hectare cattle and grain property outside of Moonie while also working as the ICPA Queensland Webmaster and has been helping locals report their line issues, particularly elderly people.

She said it was difficult when the communications company had difficulty communicating what was wrong to their customers.

“We are only 400km west of Brisbane but because it is over an hour in any direction to a town you do feel very very isolated,” Ms Urquhart said.

“I’m sure there are some much further western or northern Queensland people who possibly have better service than us.”

As local resident Elizabeth Cameron stated on Facebook, she had more phone service during an earthquake in Nepal than she did in her own town.

”Last time I checked Moonie wasn’t located in a (third) world country,” she said.

“How is it I don’t have a landline or mobile service?”

Telstra Area General Manager Darren Clark said they were investigating a suspected interference.

“Telstra is working all the time to improve mobile coverage in regional and remote Australia,” he said.